{"id":36185,"date":"2017-05-03T13:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T16:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=36185"},"modified":"2017-05-09T15:35:11","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T18:35:11","slug":"planting-the-future-intelligent-garden-brings-environmental-education-to-providencia-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=36185","title":{"rendered":"Planting a Future: ‘Intelligent Garden’ Brings Environmental Education to Provid\u00eancia Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

It is not a simple task to keep the attention of twenty children between two and\u00a0three years old. But on a Monday afternoon, a young crowd sits straight in their little concrete backyard at the public daycare of Tia Dora<\/a> in Provid\u00eancia<\/a>. The attraction they are looking at is a bucket full of soil. It has been brought there by Elis\u00e2ngela Almeida Oliveira.<\/p>\n

Elis\u00e2ngela\u00a0is coordinator and founder of Horta Inteligente<\/a>, or Intelligent Garden, a community-based NGO whose aim is environmental education for children. In addition to the bucket she has\u00a0brought some painted pots made of former plastic bottles and white bean seeds. When\u00a0called on, every child may grab a blade and put some soil and a bean in their vessel. With pride and pot they return to their seat and wait until\u00a0it’s time to water their plants-to-be.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere in Provid\u00eancia children don’t have much contact with nature,\u201d\u00a0Elis\u00e2ngela explains. \u201cThere isn’t a lot of public green space. For some of them it’s the first time they put their hands in the soil and play with mud. They don’t know about what they eat, where their food comes from. And\u00a0they don’t eat a lot of vegetables and fruits. For their parents it’s very expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Although being a resident of Provid\u00eancia<\/a> herself, Elis\u00e2ngela’s childhood was different. Before she came to Rio with her mother and four siblings, Elis\u00e2ngela\u00a0lived in Vit\u00f3ria da Conquista in the State of Bahia. The lack of infrastructure and perspective brought them to the city, but Elis\u00e2ngela still remembers how happy she was to see a watermelon growing in their garden when she was younger.<\/p>\n

That said, Horta Inteligente<\/a> is about more than growing fruits and vegetables. When Elis\u00e2ngela started the\u00a0NGO two years ago, she actually had something different in mind. As a trainee\u00a0of Ag\u00eancia Redes para Juventude<\/a>, or\u00a0Networks for Youth Agency<\/a>,\u00a0she planned to start\u00a0a community recycling project. But then she realized how hard it is to\u00a0change adults’ fixed habits. \u201cIt will take thirty years,\u201d\u00a0people told her. \u201cSo I came up with the idea to create a gardening project for kids\u00a0and within the methodology teach them not to throw garbage on the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then Elis\u00e2ngela has established\u00a0the educational cycle of the project as up to two months. Within that period she combines lessons in\u00a0painting pots, cooking vegetables, gardening and recycling. In the end both children and their parents are asked about how they liked the project and what the impact was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really love children. They inspire me, how they absorb everything,” Elis\u00e2ngela explains. “When you tell them something like they shouldn’t\u00a0throw trash on the street, they keep it in their heads. And when they see their relatives doing that, they tell them not to. They are very intelligent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Today's<\/a><\/p>\n

More than 400 children have undergone the training in Horta Inteligente’s\u00a0first two years. Some of them got their education within the daycare, others took part in workshops that Horta Inteligente offers during fairs or in their own small garden at the Centenary Methodist Church in nearby Gamboa. Before being turned into a community garden, the area was abandoned and full of trash. Through a mutir\u00e3o<\/em>\u00a0collective action they cleaned up the space and opened it to the public.<\/p>\n

All funding for Horta Inteligente\u00a0currently comes from selling their educational programming\u00a0to private schools and seedlings at fairs like\u00a0Ekob\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0in the nearby Pra\u00e7a Mau\u00e1. They utilize the social network of\u00a0Atados<\/a>\u00a0for connecting their\u00a0NGO with outside volunteers.<\/p>\n

\"There<\/a><\/p>\n

The program is currently volunteer-run,\u00a0Elis\u00e2ngela managing it together with her partner Lorena, an environmental engineer from Niter\u00f3i.\u00a0However, Elis\u00e2ngela does consider the possibility that Horta Inteligente will develop into a career. At only 20, and Lorena only 24, the two and their project are full of potential:\u00a0\u201cWe are still young and a lot of people don’t believe in us,” they say. “‘How will you achieve that?’ they ask. But I say, ‘of course we will!'”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas It is not a simple task to keep the attention of twenty children between two and\u00a0three years old. But on a Monday afternoon, a young crowd sits straight in their little […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":36187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1288,1290,1271,1503,329,452,1329],"tags":[1154,1261,2405,756,258,1461,364,385,291,386,1565,1298,148,103,144,171,388,1403,471,287,1140,259],"writer":[2204],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-civilsociety","9":"category-favelaqualities","10":"category-opportunities-to-support-favelas","11":"category-solutions","12":"category-rio20","13":"category-by-international-observers","14":"tag-agencia-redes-para-juventude","15":"tag-central-rio","16":"tag-community-garden","17":"tag-community-organizing","18":"tag-community-solution","19":"tag-community-space","20":"tag-community-based-organization-cbo","21":"tag-environmental-education","22":"tag-food","23":"tag-trash","24":"tag-garden","25":"tag-green-space","26":"tag-port-region","27":"tag-profile","28":"tag-morro-da-providencia","29":"tag-public-space","30":"tag-recycling","31":"tag-solution","32":"tag-sustainability","33":"tag-urban-agriculture","34":"tag-waste-management","35":"tag-youth","36":"writer-lisa-hollenbach"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36185"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=36185"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=36185"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=36185"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=36185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}